Tech Talk: Steve Thomaschefsky from Waupaca School District

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Tech Talk with Steve Thomaschefsky

00:06 (Amy Bennett from Lightspeed Systems)

Today I’m talking with Steve Thomaschefsky from Waupaca, Wisconsin. How’s everything

going Steve?

00:12 (Steve Thomaschefsky)

Well the weather’s pretty nice today, it’s actually in the 60s, which for us in Wisconsin, is is a rare commodity at this time of year, so we’ll take it.

00:22

Yeah you take what you can get these days! You are the

Director of Technology there at the school district. How has the shift to remote learning been going for you guys?

00:30

You know, it’s been an interesting journey. I was brought in a couple years ago. This is my second year and and they had done a nice job. And before me, they started setting up the one-to-one program.

0:41

And when I got here, I kind of looked at that and it was one of the draws because they already had some things in place, and we were moving it down. So this year we moved it, so the kids were 1:1 in 2-12th grade.

00:53

Oh, nice!

00:56

And when we did that shift, was when we moved from Lightspeed Rocket to Relay (Lightspeed Filter) because I was like: “Wow you know

I really like the Lightspeed product because of what I could do inside of it.”

01:04

And it was a shift, but then we could we could customize things for all those levels. And so we had been playing with that all year as far as having like a during school session and after school session. And a lot of these things we had put in place, so we had really really hammered through that and everybody was pretty used to it when all this went down, you know, early March for us.

01:25

We were on spring break and it was all the directors were here and we were in meetings for three days straight trying to figure out, “what are we gonna do?”

01:34

And I think one of the best things we did right away was we said, “Nothing new.”

01:39

We made that decision from technology and curriculum that said they shouldn’t really look a lot different than what you’re currently doing, and we made

some really smart choices earlier this year. as far as with Relay (Lightspeed Filter).

01:52

Has this shifted other summer project plans for teacher training in particular? I would think.

01:58

yeah we hold like a technology camp that we do every year. And we basically said:

02:04

“Ok, this year it’s gonna be training.” There’s just nothing else. We’re gonna need that time just to train.

02:11

I just, I don’t think it goes back 100% to the way it was.

02:16

Yeah, I would agree with that. Some for better, some for worse. It’s just a new normal that we’re gonna be facing, right?

02:25

Technology-wise, like I couldn’t be happier. I don’t know if everybody feels that way. I was able to direct from home

which was also amazing. To have all these tools, we really didn’t miss a beat.

02:35

I think that with

something like the Relay (Lightspeed Filter) filter, I’m hearing both sides.

02:39

Number one: It’s really important that wherever the device is going – if it used to stay in school and now it’s home or back and forth in the fall – that it works seamlessly from anywhere.

02:51

But then also for IT staff, the ability to manage it from anywhere, you’re not dealing with racks and appliances that need maintenance and things like that.

03:02

Yeah, that’s what I thought of when when I found out that Rocket came with Relay (Lightspeed Filter).

Actually that’s when I made that switch. I don’t have to manage this appliance, we keep it as a backup in case we have to, but if something would ever happen where they have to be outside of school for an extended period of time, we can do this from wherever and we can login. We can change rules so yeah, I couldn’t be happier that we made that decision and moved in that direction.

03:30

I said that was just one in

03:32

the series of a lot of things that

03:34

seemed to have fallen in place for us

03:36

where it just we didn’t have to worry

03:38

about that because that was one of the

03:39

first questions I got is how are you

03:41

gonna filter these things at home and

03:42

I’m like we already we put relay on

03:44

they’ve been out all year classroom

03:47

would have been the other big one that I

03:48

wish I would have across the district

03:50

because when teachers they want to see

03:53

the students screen if they’re not in

03:54

that that google meet or zoom with them

03:56

that they could do that you know it

03:58

would have been another way to to be

04:01

able to communicate well just so you

04:03

know to the relay filter has the parent

04:07

reports that you can set up to go out

04:08

weekly but our development team is

04:11

working on a parent portal where in

04:13

addition to the information parents

04:16

could turn Internet access off when

04:20

devices are home to help with some of

04:23

this balance between schools and what

04:26

they’re doing and parents and how much

04:28

they have to manage

04:29

so that is in the works that would be

04:31

amazing

04:32

well thank you and your staff and your

04:35

team for everything you’re doing to keep

04:37

kids safe and learning and keep

04:40

education going we appreciate it if

04:42

there’s anything we can do for you let

04:45

us know we’re here to help just keep

04:49

telling all the cool stories that are

04:50

happening out there I mean we’re not the

04:52

only district that’s doing amazing

04:54

things and I think people just need to

04:56

know that that this is still okay yeah

05:00

and school is still going on yeah okay

05:04

I appreciate your story thank you so

05:06

much and have a good afternoon

05:08

you also thank you nice talking to you

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